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prologue — two years earlier
( tw: mentions of abuse )
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HE WAS IN ONE OF HIS RAGES AGAIN.
This was definitely the worst one yet, though — she'd never seen him get so angry. And this was a man who broke plates and flipped furniture at the slightest inconvenience.
Crash! Crash! Crash!
The girl put her hands over her ears, curling up in the corner with her knees drawn to her chest, trying to muffle her sobs over the sound of splintering wood.
Crash! Crash!
She closed her eyes, rocking back and forth on the fluffy pink carpet.
CRASH!
With one final, mighty blow, he stopped. She summoned the courage to uncurl herself from her corner, sitting up on her knees to peer through the pink butterfly curtains of the bedroom window.
He stood back in the centre of the garden, breathing heavily, sweaty hair falling in his eyes — this monster who was wearing her father's face, her hopes and dreams scattered in rainbow-painted pieces at his feet.
Then her mother was outside, long blonde hair streaming behind her, catching the last rays of the setting sun. She yelled at him, waving her hands in a fury the girl had never seen her in before. He spat his foulest curses right back, and the little girl wanted to scream for her to turn and run, because he was still holding the hammer in his right hand and he was glaring at his wife like it was her head he wanted to smash to pieces next.
She didn't run, though. She kept shouting and gesturing in her dance of incandescent rage, letting loose with all the anger she'd bottled up inside for the past thirteen years. But he was at his breaking point too, and before he knew what he was doing he had drawn his left hand back and struck her cheek with a staggering amount of force.
The little girl gasped, pulling away from the window like it burned her. She pressed herself against the wall like she was trying to merge with the pastel pink wallpaper.
